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Does distracted Monkey's countermeasure's mastery feature mean you no longer take the penalty for using it too often? It is an MA clash charm.

The mastery effect refers to when the charm can be activated, not the compounding penalty for multiple activations. Though you've pointed out something I need to make clearer - it was never meant to preclude itself from being used.

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Just something to throw out there ELK about the staff use and why it is so associated with monkey style. Actual monkey style kung fu trains in the use of the staff in awkward ways like a monkey would, because the prisoner who developed the style by watching monkeys fight in the jungles outside his cell window routinely observed them fighting with sticks as well. I know this is creation and all and you got it done and seems solid and sure ducks is happy with it. But Martial Arts is something I have studied a lot and just wanted to point that out.

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Just something to throw out there ELK about the staff use and why it is so associated with monkey style. Actual monkey style kung fu trains in the use of the staff in awkward ways like a monkey would, because the prisoner who developed the style by watching monkeys fight in the jungles outside his cell window routinely observed them fighting with sticks as well. I know this is creation and all and you got it done and seems solid and sure ducks is happy with it. But Martial Arts is something I have studied a lot and just wanted to point that out.

Well, that's prob what I get for doing internet research - I wasn't able to find many versions of the Monkey style 'kung fu' that used weapons or tools, where one or two specialized styles used poles.

Comment

I really like your write-up, but I have a bunch of comments and suggestions.

Distracted Monkey's Countermeasure: If I understand correctly it cannot be used, if you have taken a combat action. Yet it alludes that you would be able to use it multiple times. However doesn't the clash attack the Charm generates constitute a combat action? Also combat actions seems to include Attack, Aim, Defend Other, Draw/Ready Weapon, Full Defense and Miscellaneous Action (EX3: 196). It seems a bit excessive to not even allow Miscellaneous Actions. I would suggest replacing then no combat actions clause with the following: "Distracted Monkey's Countermeasure may only be use when attack by enemies with a higher Initiative. In addition, it cannot be used in any scene where the martial artist has success crashed an opponent or landed a decisive attack." This would mean it can be used against opponent that seems to have the upper hand (higher Initiative) until you prove yourself a dangerous combatant.

Monkey Form: The dice pool is a bit ambiguous. Most Charms leave the Essence dice out of the equation and either state that you get Essence bonus dice or Essence non-charm bonus dice. Also I would probably base it of Martial Arts rather than Presence since a form charm should in my opinion be at the very core of the style. Alternatively a case could be made for both Performance (Acting) and Socialize (Guile). Do you suffer the usual penalties for multiple targets and wordless social actions? Does the Intimacy persist after the scene ends? And more importantly can the Instill be resisted be spending a single Willpower as per the usual rules for Instill? If so the form seems underwhelming to me. Perhaps add a Mastery effect that prevents opponent from doing so? You could also add a Terrestrial effect capping the dice penalty with the rating of the intimacy instilled (which would make the finisher nicer for Terrestrials). I also think some sort of range limitation would be appropriate. My suggestion would be medium range. Finally as written it only seems to affect opponents upon activation. Perhaps new opponent moving within range should be affected by the original roll as well. All of this adds up to me suggesting gathering inspiration from the Agata's ability to create a tie of wonder. I would go with this: "Roll a Manipulation + Martial Arts with a number of bonus dice equal to Essence. While this Charm is active if someone finds themselves within medium range of the martial artist for the first time this scene compare the successes on the rolle to their Resolve. Unless their Resolve exceeds the number of successes on the roll they count as having having a minor tie of hesitant confusion towards the martial artist for the rest of the scene."

Mocking Monkey’s Provocation: Forcing someone to do something would be a persuade not an inspire. Also I would probably add that "hesitant confusion" ties towards the martial artist always supports this persuade attempt. On the other hand I would remove the willpower cost for resisting, since you can only resist persuade, if you can justify it with an intimacy in a decision point.

Flowing Mirror of Opposition: I had to read this several times to understand it. It seems complicated and really hard to know if you get anything from spending your action and the Charm cost on the activation. I'm not quite sure what to do with it though. I would probably making it a Manipulation + Performance roll reducing the successes of the target on their following action. If it cancels all successes it turns the opponent's roll into a botch.

Shining Trinket Fascination: I dont think the fluff and the effect adds up. Perhaps it should simply allow the martial artist to follow up a succesful pick pocket attempt with an incite action to incite rage. If the incite action succeeds the martial artist gains an Evasion bonus against the target until the target retrieves the item stolen or the incite action subsides.

Refined Monkey Understanding: Does the level of the tie actually matter? When I look through the Charms it doesn't seems to make a difference. Making normal weapons into artifact weapons seems a bit boring to me, since it reduces player interest in getting actual artifact weapons.

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Refined Monkey Understanding: Making normal weapons into artifact weapons seems a bit boring to me, since it reduces player interest in getting actual artifact weapons.

It does not make normal weapons into artifact weapons, it makes big sticks have the traits of Heavy melee artifact weapons. If you want to spend 10m 1wp and your action (it's a Simple charm, you know?) drawing an artifact-level beatstick with no Evocations? I won't stop ya.

I'll be siting over here with 5 more motes, all my WP, and Gnomon, reflexively entering Monkey Form on turn 1 with my tricksy Monkey King evocations.

Distracted Monkey's Countermeasure: If I understand correctly it cannot be used, if you have taken a combat action. Yet it alludes that you would be able to use it multiple times. However doesn't the clash attack the Charm generates constitute a combat action? Also combat actions seems to include Attack, Aim, Defend Other, Draw/Ready Weapon, Full Defense and Miscellaneous Action (EX3: 196). It seems a bit excessive to not even allow Miscellaneous Actions. I would suggest replacing then no combat actions clause with the following: "Distracted Monkey's Countermeasure may only be use when attack by enemies with a higher Initiative. In addition, it cannot be used in any scene where the martial artist has success crashed an opponent or landed a decisive attack." This would mean it can be used against opponent that seems to have the upper hand (higher Initiative) until you prove yourself a dangerous combatant.

The intent was that the reflexive clash didn't count as a combat action as far as the charm was concerned. And yes, the intention was that if you had participated in the combat already you can't use it, losing 2i per turn you want to keep using it (the cost for doing nothing)

Also I would probably base it of Martial Arts rather than Presence since a form charm should in my opinion be at the very core of the style. Alternatively a case could be made for both Performance (Acting) and Socialize (Guile). Do you suffer the usual penalties for multiple targets and wordless social actions? Does the Intimacy persist after the scene ends? And more importantly can the Instill be resisted be spending a single Willpower as per the usual rules for Instill?

Since I don't specify otherwise it should be assumed that the influence roll follows the same rules as any other social influence.

If that's underwhelming? I dunno. they are basically paying a wp tax to avoid a cap-breaker defense buff that the monkey only pays for once. Remember you can slide in and out of MA forms on your turn (and out of it if you're fulfilling reflexive effects) and only pay the cost of the most expensive one - there are only a few less expensive than 6m so I kept that in mind when costing it. also, the intimacy comes up again later in the tree for more effects. So it's possible for the monkey to retry the action every 2 rounds at least if it didn't stick the first time.

Mocking Monkey’s Provocation: Forcing someone to do something would be a persuade not an inspire. Also I would probably add that "hesitant confusion" ties towards the martial artist always supports this persuade attempt. On the other hand I would remove the willpower cost for resisting, since you can only resist persuade, if you can justify it with an intimacy in a decision point.

I made it an inspire specifcally to avoid decision points, personally - though I could see a case for both. PUrsuade interacts with another sub-system (decision points) that extends the resolution of the action and I'd prefer a simpler solution in the midst of combat. If you want to tire people out and use up all their intimacies pursuade is better, though it would suffer from the drawback of retrying social actions. Also, you can totally WP away from inspires? point 3 on pg 219 EX3 core.

Flowing Mirror of Opposition: I had to read this several times to understand it. It seems complicated and really hard to know if you get anything from spending your action and the Charm cost on the activation. I'm not quite sure what to do with it though. I would probably making it a Manipulation + Performance roll reducing the successes of the target on their following action. If it cancels all successes it turns the opponent's roll into a botch.

I made its cost similar to that melee charm that counterattacks everyone who tries to hit you because it's up for a whole round. I made it withering because it seemed to suit the idea of the charm and nixed the initiative gain because most other charms that do something similar do as well. The main goal here is to trip up someone else, not gain an advantage yourself (tricky monkey) but I added some flavour to help your allies and a mastery effect for REALLY tricky monkeys.

So what you get is essentially two things. Either you provoke your target into delaying their actions, hoping to avoid the counter attack - or you strip them of initiative before they get to attack (no matter who that is) this has the potential to no-sell a decisive by removing all their initiative or potentially dipping it below a hardness threshold. Think of it more of a ranged defensive charm rather than an attack charm.

Shining Trinket Fascination: I dont think the fluff and the effect adds up. Perhaps it should simply allow the martial artist to follow up a succesful pick pocket attempt with an incite action to incite rage. If the incite action succeeds the martial artist gains an Evasion bonus against the target until the target retrieves the item stolen or the incite action subsides.

the fluff was meant to be a joke. The monkey is proud, you see - but foolish, unaware of (or unwilling to admit) their own curiosity. The effect again is a cap-breaking defense charm since you're penalising their attack rather than boosting your defence (a kind of theme in my version of monkey, if you notice)

Refined Monkey Understanding: Does the level of the tie actually matter? When I look through the Charms it doesn't seems to make a difference. Making normal weapons into artifact weapons seems a bit boring to me, since it reduces player interest in getting actual artifact weapons.

It matters in so far as someone having an intimacy that you know of leaves them open to further influence - moreso if you manage to beat them and they are forced to adopt an intimacy of admiration they can't even attempt to get rid of for a while.

The weapons thing was mostly for improvised weapons, so you could pick up any old thing and smack someone with it more effectively - I hadn't considered the impact of using it on an artifact weapon but that was mostly because I was assuming a monkey wasn't using one (for some reason I can't recall right now).

That all said, now that it's a significant period of time later I would tweak, if not compeltely rebuild every charm in here now that I know more from playing and have a lot more experience making custom content for my players. But I'm unlikely to ever get to it unless someone specifically wanted Monkey in my games.